Chapter 14
Proclivities to Know
This diagnostic chapter of 27 slokas, known as gunatraya vibhãga yoga, Differentiation of Qualities Three, details the three human proclivities - virtue, passion and delusion. It concludes with the identification of the realized spirit.
However, it may be noted that s3, s4 and s19 that deal with the Nature and the Spirit are digressions, and thus are interpolations.
1
Thus spoke the Lord:
Pass I now thee that knowledge
With which sages free themselves.
2
Knows whoso this reaches Me
Keeps thus births ’n deaths at bay.
5
To tie the Spirit ’n body tight
Uses Nature as its threads
Virtue, passion as well delusion.
6
Spirit as well gets well enticed
By the charms of life well-led
Steeped in wisdom and virtue.
7
Frames of passion as it weds
Spirit gets fond of joys of life.
8
It’s in delusion Spirit with sloth
Doth go in tow on wrong path.
9
Gives man virtue life of ease
Grinds him passion in despair
Deprives delusion him of reason.
10
Of the trio often
Takes as lead role one of these
Others to sidelines are confined.
11
Wearing wisdom on his sleeve
Radiates virtuous throughout life.
12
Plain greedy, or ever restive
It’s the way all passionate live.
13
Dull in mind
And perverted
In work lethargic
He’s but deluded.
14
Peaks as virtue dies as one
Ascends he the State Highest.
15
Dies if one with passion on hold
Comes he back to resume things,
Lives who deluded all his life
Gets he none better in rebirths.
16
Virtuous sully never their lives
Rue passionate as chase joys
Go down deluded drain of life.
17
Gives as virtue wisdom true
Renders passion unto grief
Leads as delusion into sloth.
18
Echelons virtuous reach higher
Remain ‘as is where’ passionate
Go down ladder ever the deluded.
20
Out of orbit if thou go
Of Nature that grips thy mind
Freed be thou of recurring births.
21
Thus spoke Arjuna:
Can man ever, rein in matter,
Is there regimen that reins it?
22
Thus spoke the Lord:
With no let or ever hindrance
Whatever it be he lets go,
Takes he things all as they come
With none fondness or distaste.
23
Seeing it all nature's work
From the fringes of conscience
Detached he watches goings on.
24
It’s in fairness that he weighs
Affairs of life in fine balance.
25
Sans self, ego, self-realized
Works his way to state tranquil.
26
It’s by capping his nature
Wavers he not from the path
That which truly leads to Me
And in end he turns Brahman.
27
It’s Me Immortal self of Brahman
Dharma eternal that’s All-Blissful.
Ends thus:
Proclivities to Know,
The Fourteenth Chapter
Of Bhagavad-Gita,
Treatise of self-help.
Note: To cross the 500-word publishing bar,
here it is recalled that this endeavour
has been Dedicated to my grandparents,
Paternal: Bulusu Thimmaiah -Lakshmi Narasamma,
Maternal: Challa Kameswara Rao - Suramma
And parents: Peraiah Sastry and Kamakshi,
In whose care my destiny so favourably placed me.
